Agence France-PresseMar 19, 2021 10:28:33 IST
The growing frequency and severity of pure disasters starting from large fires to locust invasions are placing food manufacturing techniques in danger, the United Nations warned Thursday. The annual occurrences of excessive occasions have tripled for the reason that 1970s and “their economic impact is relentlessly increasing,” the UN Food and Agriculture Organization mentioned in a report. “At no other point in history have agri-food systems confronted such an array of new and unprecedented threats, including megafires, extreme weather, unusually large desert locust swarms, and emerging biological threats like the COVID-19 pandemic,” FAO mentioned.
“These hazards not only take lives but also devastate agricultural livelihoods and inflict cascading negative economic consequences… that can endure for generations,” it added.
Describing the scenario because the “new normal,” the UN report mentioned that since 2000, disasters have taken “a drastic leap in frequency and have continued to occur at a consistently high rate.”
As a consequence, in poor and creating international locations, misplaced agricultural manufacturing in the interval 2008-18 got here to $108.5 billion, FAO emergency and rehabilitation director Dominique Burgeon instructed AFP.
“Those economic losses can devastate the lives and livelihoods of people,” Burgeon, mentioned noting that greater than two billion individuals depend upon agriculture for his or her livelihoods.
The worldwide neighborhood should make investments extra in preventive measures, Burgeon mentioned.
The pandemic, in the meantime, is “crippling agriculture and food systems” as authorities measures to comprise the coronavirus are disrupting demand and provide, in accordance to the report.
“Farmers are experiencing reduced access to inputs, labor, and farmlands, resulting in production loss, lower household income, and nutrition declines,” Burgeon mentioned.
The UN is getting ready a particular food techniques summit in September because it pushes sustainable growth objectives by to 2030.